Climate change: who is responsible and who is vulnerable?

More than two million people signed Avaaz’s climate change petition, which was presented to Ban Ki Moon in New York.

As world leaders meet there this week for a UN climate summit, check out this incredible interactive map from The Guardian, that shows which nations pollute the most, how this has changed over time, and who is most at risk.

23.Sep

September 23rd, 2014

The Qatar World Cup Disaster

EDITOR:

Murat Suner

Yesterday, Fifa Executive Committee member Theo Zwanziger, said he believes the 2022 World Cup will not be played in Qatar.

The computer generated image from Qatar's FIFA pitch shows Lusail City that will host the final. However, Lusail City doesn't even exist yet. The picture appears like a metaphor for how the Qatari committee sold the games to the FIFA: a fairytale-like world that actually doesn't exist.

The Qatar games could be the most absurd scenario in the history of the global tournament. Consider for a second the initial idea of these world spanning sport events: to battle against each other in a peaceful manner. However, more than 1,500 workers died so far during the ongoing construction process - and this number will most likely increase.

The Business Insider impressively presents 17 reasons why the Qatari World Cup is already a disaster - from modern day slavery, homophobic laws, enormous numbers of bribe to serious medical concerns due to totally inappropriate climate conditions.

Theo Zwanziger's belated de facto rejection of the games primarily relates to climate conditions without any reference to the dubious political nature of Qatar as a host country.

However, according to the Guardian, there is evidence that “Qatar’s military and economic largesse has made its way to Jabhat al-Nusra”, an al-Qaida group operating in Syria. While there is no evidence to suggest Qatar’s regime is directly funding Isis, "powerful private individuals within the state certainly are, and arms intended for other jihadi groups are likely to have fallen into their hands. According to a secret memo signed by Hillary Clinton, released by Wikileaks, Qatar has the worst record of counter-terrorism cooperation with the US."

22.Sep

September 22nd, 2014

Australia's counter-terror laws could threaten free speech

EDITOR:

Vanessa Ellingham

This week the Australian parliament is debating changes to national security laws with the aim of countering terrorism.

The proposed changes are being debated less than a week after the Australian police foiled an Islamist terror plot which would have seen an Australian civilian chosen at random and beheaded on camera.

Australia is one of the Western nations with the highest proportion of Muslims having left to fight in Syria and, more recently, join ISIS.

While the timing of these two events is merely coincidence, the Australian public, having so recently faced a serious terrorist threat, is likely to be supportive of measures that aim to ramp up security.

But Pearson says the parliament shouldn't be too hasty to adopt the laws, which would see people imprisoned for five years for disclosing information related to special intelligence operations.

"Punishing those who leak security information or publish it can be problematic because it suppresses information that may be vital for the exercise and protection of human rights, accountability and democratic governance", she writes.

"Some of the most significant revelations of human rights violations come from disclosures of once-secret information relating to the misconduct of security agencies. If this amendment passes, lawyers, journalists and activists could be prosecuted simply for doing their jobs of holding the government to account."

Intelligence, whistleblowing and human rights are all a theme in Oceania right now.

Just last Monday, New Zealand saw whistleblower Edward Snowden andWikileaks' Julain Assange attend a election rally via video conference to give evidence that the New Zealand government is spying on its citizens, which it denies.

20.Sep

September 20th, 2014

The Biggest Climate March In History

EDITOR:

Ama Lorenz

On September 21st, thousands of rallies, marches and protests will take place delivering the biggest ever global demonstration for climate action in history. The largest will be in New York where upwards of 100,000 people are expected to come together to demand leaders take action in advance of the Ban Ki Moon climate summit that takes place two days later.

“There’s a vast latent constituency of people out there who are alarmed about climate change. But for years, nobody has put up a banner that said ‘this is the time, this is the place, to show you care.’ The People’s Climate March is that banner, and we’re seeing a phenomenal response to it,” said Ricken Patel, Executive Director of the 38-million member civic organization, Avaaz.

Over 30 celebrities have also begun showing support for the march, including UN Goodwill Ambassador for Biodiversity and actor Edward Norton, His Serene Highness Prince Albert II of Monaco, as well Argentine footballer Lionel Messi.

The worldwide mobilization and march in New York City will take place just two days before world leaders are set to attend a Climate Summit at the United Nations hosted by Secretary General Ban Ki-moon. The summit is designed to build momentum for national and international climate action, including a new global climate treaty that will be finalized in Paris next year. Mobilization organizers say they are looking for “Action, Not Words” at the summit.

“The scale, pace, and power of the organizing happening right now is something that we haven’t seen before,” said May Boeve, executive director of the international climate campaign, 350.org. “People realize that we can’t leave the fate of the planet up to our politicians. We need to come together, raise our voices, and apply pressure where it counts.”

The Canadian Museum for Human Rights will open today in Winnipeg after a decade of planning and construction.

The building is designed to present a "tower of hope", spiralling towards the sky. And in a nation known for its serious commitment to human rights, it seems appropriate.

Of course, the human rights world is full of one-upmanship, and the construction of the museum has been called out for many reasons - including its lack of relevance to one of Canada's poorest neighbourhoods, located just a few kilometres away.

The project cost $300 million CAD.

Of course critics have questioned how the creation of such an expensive building is a better investment than funding humanitarian aid work.

And yet the museum will open today, offering an exploration of how human rights shape our world.

The museum features topics relevant to Canada including indigenous rights, but also global events like the Holocaust, which is housed in its own gallery.

The importance of educating future generations about human rights must not be underestimated - it will be interesting to see the impact of this museum on its community and those who pay a visit.

18.Sep

September 18th, 2014

The last hope for civilians in Syria's war

EDITOR:

Murat Suner

While the world’s attention, headlines and political action are focused now on ISIS, Syria remains one of the most dangerous places in the world to be a civilian. Improvised weapons – like barrels full of explosives or mortars made from gas cylinders – cannot be targeted, and so make no distinction between civilians and fighters.

These weapons are being dropped on "markets, hospitals and schools that continue to operate in desperate conditions and amid constant threat of attack." said the United Nations in February 2014.

Yet more than six months after the Security Council demanded an end to these indiscriminate attacks, they are being used more frequently.

While there is no help to be seen arriving a group of volunteers formed the White Helmets. These young men head out every day to save lives - fully aware that more bombs may fall on the same site. Actually, this happens systematically, because the armed forces of the Syrian government know that civilians arrive in search of survivors.

More than 50 bombs and mortars a day land on some neighbourhoods in Syria. Many are rusty barrels filled with nails and explosives, rolled out the back of government helicopters onto homes, schools and hospitals.

The White Helmets have saved 2,514 lives in the past year alone - and this number is growing daily.

Three boats carrying migrants across the Mediterranean have been shipwrecked in recent days, with 700 people presumed dead.

The few survivors of the worst incident told police that when those on board objected to being transfered to a second boat which looked even less seaworthy than the first, smugglers responded by ramming the boat, sabotaging the journey.

While an investigation from both police and the International Organisation for Migration must certainly take place, it is not enough to simply reduce these incidents to crimes.

"Many factors feed into boat migration," writes Judith Sunderland at Human Rights Watch. "... fear of persecution in Eritrea, dying under bombs in Syria and Gaza, drought and lawlessness in Somalia, poverty and conflict in South Sudan, and similar causes in scores of other places.

"The lies and threats of traffickers, the breakdown of societies, and the economic disparities can seem impossible to tackle in a meaningful, humane way. But here are two concrete ways the European Union can reduce the odds of another tragedy at sea."

The first she names is that the EU must create safer legal ways for asylum seekers to reach Europe - by seeking protection through official means rather than attempting dangerous sea crossings.

"To date, EU policies have focused largely on enforcing borders – keeping people out – rather than ensuring access to safety for those who need it. The EU Home Affairs Commissioner asked the member states in July to consider humanitarian visas or allow asylum applications in third countries. Both ideas merit adoption."

Sunderland also urges the EU not to downgrade its rescue efforts in the Mediterranean. " The Italian Navy operation Mare Nostrum, launched last October after two deadly shipwrecks, has brought tens of thousands of people safely to Italian shores. Critics say the operation has encouraged boat migration, yet more than half of those who have made the journey are fleeing human rights abuse in Eritrea and war in Syria. The prospect that Mare Nostrum will be replaced soon by “Frontex Plus,” a far more limited operation by the EU’s border agency, raises the specter of a rising death toll (already at nearly 3,000 so far this year)."

"Going after the criminals directly responsible for hundreds of deaths is important. Changing EU policies to prevent thousands more is vital."

16.Sep

September 16th, 2014

Turkey became a recruitment hub for ISIS

EDITOR:

Murat Suner

With Turkey's refusal to join US efforts to form a core coalition of 10 countries fighting ISIS the Wall Street Journal declared Turkey as a "non-ally" to the US. Last Thursday Turkish government further declined to sign a communiqué that committed a number of regional states to take “appropriate” measures to counter ISIS.

Turkey's open border policy since the early phase of the Syrian civil war provided a silent support to the rise of ISIS. While a large number of foreign fighters, including some from Europe and the United States, have joined ISIS, "one of the biggest source of recruits is neighboring Turkey, a NATO member with an undercurrent of Islamist discontent." reports the New York Times.

The newspaper further quotes Aaron Stein, a fellow at the Royal United Services Institute, a London-based think tank: “There are clearly recruitment centers being set up in Ankara and elsewhere in Turkey, but the government doesn’t seem to care."

According to NYT author Ceylan Yenginsu, districts like Haci Bayram in Ankara, providing up to 100 fighters, have become ISIS recruitment hubs over the past year. Just there, in Haci Bayram Veli Mosque, President Recep Tayyip Erdogan of Turkey, and Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoglu, prayed together in August.

15.Sep

September 15th, 2014

South Sudan: a multimedia documentary

EDITOR:

Vanessa Ellingham

A moving multimedia documentary on South Sudan has been produced by the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, along with Messengers of Humanity.

The documentary reveals many human layers of the man-made catastrophe still playing out in Sudan, charting the displacement of almost two million people to the current threat of widespread famine.

Take a look at the documentary and consider joining Messengers of Humanity, a community of global advocates using social media to highlight humanitarian crises.

13.Sep

September 13th, 2014

The Rooms of Horror in Badush Prison

EDITOR:

Murat Suner

Pakhshan Zangana, Head of High Council of Women Affairs of the Kurdish Regional Government, reports that about 700 Kurdish Yazidi women have been kidnapped by ISIS.

Women who have run away from ISIS’s prison and the families of those still held captive have come to Pakhshan Zangana for help. Zangana is trying to bring attention to the women’s plight and plead for intervention on their behalf but fears that her efforts have stalled. “We have women and families calling in every day, the situation is getting desperate,” said Zangana to The Daily Beast. Without outside aid, Zangana has turned to asking for private donations to try to buy the captured Yazidi women back from ISIS before they are sold into sexual slavery.

Mosul’s Badush prison, where the women are enslaved, is used to hold captured women as sex slaves, according to multiple reports, before trafficking them to third parties. Among these women there are also members of other minority groups, like Turkomans and Christians.

A 17 year old Yazidi girl captured by ISIS has revealed to La Repubblica newspaper the extreme abuse she suffers as a sex slave at the hands of the extremists. She describes how the women and girls are kept in three “rooms of horror” where the women are raped, often by different men and throughout the day. “They treat us like slaves. We are always ‘given’ to different men. Some arrive straight from Syria,” she says.

"This is not just a Kurdish or Iraqi problem, this is an international crisis.” Survivors believe that ISIS incorporates fighters from all over the world. “The women calling are telling us that many of these men hail from Chechnya,” others seem to be “British and Dutch nationals”, Zangana told The Daily Beast.

Note: We couldn't find any specific link for donations yet, but we've inquired further information from the High Council of Women Affairs of the Kurdish Regional Government. If you would like to go to their website, please click here.